Living happily with food restrictions

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I went to the San Diego County Fair with friends yesterday. I was weak and I am now feeling the after effects. Due to medical conditions I am on a low fat diet. For those of you not familiar with SDCF the big advertising points is the everything with bacon (chocolate covered bacon, bacon kabobs, they even had bacon flavored root beer this year), battered and deep fried stuff (oreos, ice cream, bacon of course, donuts, etc. – the Twinkies were missing this year), and they even had Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joes.

I don’t know about you but my arteries are hardening just writing all that stuff. They had a few, and I stress the word “few,” healthy options. They have corn on the cob grilled in the husks and roasted artichokes, but by far, the selection of food options are not healthy. For that reason I brought food with me. I had plenty of fruit. I cut up a pear, some strawberries and watermelon, and had some apple slices. I also brought some cheese slices and deli turkey meat.

I was good for lunch, I ate fruit and my turkey and cheese. I wasn’t too bad for dinner, I had more fruit, an all beef hotdog (the lowest fat protein option I could find that I wasn’t allergic to) and a few nibbles from my friends turkey leg (I avoided the skin, but it was still higher in fat than I would have thought). I had never had Dippin Dots so I decided to try some. I couldn’t decide which flavor so I had Chocolate and Java Delight. Of course I just got the same size my friend got, large (which is actually their middle size, Mega is their biggest). The other snack I had were the Cinnamon-Sugar coated mini donuts. This is one of those things I look forward to each year.

My mistake wasn’t eating any one thing. Each thing I ate was something I could handle. My mistake was having them all in one day. If I had skipped the Dippin Dots (or at least gotten the small), ate less of my mini donuts (I had eight and usually I have six, four would have been enough) and not nibbled the turkey leg I would have been fine.

The hard part about living with food restrictions is watching everyone else freely eating all those things you can’t, but want to. It doesn’t matter. I need to take responsibility for my health and make good decisions. Am I going to beat myself up for not being strong? No! Will I make bad decisions again? Probably. But that’s ok. I did better than I did just a few years ago. At one time I would have eaten so much bad stuff I would have been sick for days. And I would have whined about not being able to eat whatever I want. Now, I accept that I have limitations. I can eat what I want, but within reason. I have to make decisions, smart decisions. Do I want Dippin Dots or do I want mini donuts? Next year I will stick with my mini donuts. I will get half a dozen, and be content to eat three or four.